


Rapprochement

by Empatheia



Series: FemFeb 2021 [4]
Category: Final Fantasy VIII
Genre: F/F, Femslash February, Femslash February 2021, Future Fic, Near Future, Pre-Slash, Rare Pairings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-16 01:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29568129
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empatheia/pseuds/Empatheia
Summary: Quistis finally finds the right time and right way to apologize to Rinoa, a few years after the fact.
Relationships: Quistis Trepe/Rinoa Heartilly
Series: FemFeb 2021 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2172204
Collections: Femslash February





	Rapprochement

**Author's Note:**

> Day 4 FemFeb 2021 prompt: **feather**
> 
> This is kind of... pre-slash more than true femslash, establishing the foundations I felt would be necessary before they could even go there, but I would not be surprised if I ended up writing a sequel to build on it at some point. They could have really interesting chemistry.

Timber was beautiful again, now.

Galbadia had been gone for two and a half years, and the forests were beginning to recover. The ugly bare scars had grown fresh carpets of ferns and mosses. The creeks ran clear again. Funguars lumped through the shadows around the edges of clearings, flashes of red and orange amid all the intense, humid green.

They sat on a decaying log, waiting for Watts and Zone to rendezvous, and could hear each other breathe over the aimless breeze and rustling foliage. Rinoa was kicking her feet, visibly bored.

Even in the shade, it was hot enough to make the head swim. 

She should say something, Quistis thought again. Break the silence. Keep Rinoa company a little better than this. She's the one who'd volunteered to be Rinoa's escort for this, wasn't she? Surely she hadn't meant to just sit here on a log in the woods and say nothing for all these long, long midsummer hours.

She couldn't think of anything.

It was the first time they'd spent any time together in years, though Rinoa had been a very frequent visitor to Garden for many reasons and Quistis had talked business with her plenty of times. Even back during the sorceress war, they had almost never been alone together, or had much reason to become close. 

Quistis had still been so raw back then, at first jealous of Rinoa's immediate rapport with Squall after all her own years of trying and suffering, and then confused and adrift upon learning where the roots of her feelings lay. She'd resented Rinoa so much. For making everything Quistis couldn't do look so easy. For being beautiful and likable and having everything Quistis had ever wanted without seeming to value it all that much. For so many reasons, some more valid than others. 

Time had closed those wounds, and without the pain of them to distract her, Quistis had been able to look at the reality of Rinoa head-on. 

And she was... incredible. 

There wasn't really a better word. Rinoa wasn't a SeeD, so her set of skills and strengths was completely different from everyone Quistis knew, but she'd eventually recognized the value in them, and from there could only be helplessly awed. Despite her occasionally childish mien, Rinoa had an emotional intelligence that far outstripped any deliberately stunted Garden graduate, an ability to understand the emotions of others and how those emotions drove their actions. Despite her civilian background and lack of combat experience, she had fought anyway, and survived, and come to stand toe-to-toe with the rest of the team, all of whom had been specially trained since childhood to do what she had learned in a bare handful of months. 

Then there was Timber. Not her country, not her people, but she had recognized a wrong when she'd seen it and had left her comfortable, privileged life in the home of one of its perpetrators behind without hesitation in order to go help those trying to right it. More than that, she had been  _ effective, _ rising to a position of trust and power very quickly through sheer competence. Yes, her schemes had often sounded outlandish at the outset, but they'd usually  _ worked _ , as long as her intel was good. 

Now here she sat, at Quistis' side, and Timber was free. She'd seen it through to the very end and kept going.

Suddenly, Quistis did know what to say.

"I'm sorry, you know."

Startled, Rinoa nearly tipped backwards off the log, but flailed until she regained her balance, throwing one leg over the log to perch astride it and face Quistis instead. "Huh?"

This was both harder and easier than she'd expected. Easier, because it had come out almost before she'd had to think about it; she hadn't had to screw herself up for it at all. Harder, now, because she didn't really know what to say next.

"Belatedly, I mean," she started, hoping her heart knew what it wanted to get across even if her brain didn't. "I've always wanted to say that, but it never seemed like the right time."

"Still lost," said Rinoa, gently, meeting her eyes and listening earnestly. "Start from the top?"

Quistis mulled on that for a moment. Where could this be said to have begun? Where should she start, to make Rinoa understand?

The ballroom, then. 

"When I first saw you," said Quistis, slowly working her way through, "you were dancing with Squall, and I was so jealous I could hardly breathe. Furious with him for dancing with you when he'd turned  _ me _ down flat, and furious with you for sweeping in and helping yourself without knowing anything, and furious with myself for thinking I had any right to be jealous in the first place. I'd just been demoted, too. They don't really teach us how to handle feelings in training, only bottle them up, so I tried. I tried  _ really hard. _ "

She risked a glance at Rinoa, and Rinoa looked horrified and chagrined, which didn't really make her feel better about much. It made her like Rinoa more, and her own past self a little less, that's all.

"I had no idea," breathed Rinoa, "I'm so sorry—"

"Please, don't," Quistis interrupted. "Please. You couldn't have known, and you didn't need to. It was my problem, and I was just blaming everyone else because I couldn't handle it myself. You did nothing wrong." 

"Okay," said Rinoa uncertainly. "I wish I  _ had _ known, though."

"Why?" Quistis blurted, thrown off track by genuine curiosity.

Shrugging, Rinoa picked at the bark under her palms. "I don't know. I guess I just feel like I could have avoided making you hate me and made friends with you earlier if I had? I thought you were really cool and impressive and stuff, and I didn't understand why I couldn't seem to do anything right in your eyes."

Quistis winced. "That... That right there is why I've been wanting to apologize," she said. "I treated you so badly back then, for no good reason, just taking my issues out on you because I wasn't mature enough to face them myself. You didn't deserve that."

To her discomfited surprise, Rinoa's eyes welled up and spilled over as she spoke. She still didn't really know how to handle anyone crying. Even Selphie and Zell didn't cry, despite being otherwise emotionally exuberant, because training had essentially beaten it out of them. Soldiers didn't cry. It was weak. It demonstrated a lack of control, a vulnerability that could not be tolerated.

"Crap, I'm sorry," Rinoa muttered, wiping at her eyes. "You just caught me off guard a bit, haha. I guess I cared more about all that than I thought, huh."

"I really am sorry," Quistis repeated softly. Was there something she ought to do right now to drive it home? A gesture, a touch? She didn't know. There was so much she didn't know, or couldn't remember because they'd had her sell her soul for power. It occurred to her, years too late, to resent that.

Shaking her head, Rinoa sniffled and smiled at her, warm and bright. The sun was westering behind the dense Timber jungle the nation had been named for, and its rays backlit her, glowing through her hair and framing her like some celestial being. 

Which, Quistis thought, she almost was. She'd seen those radiant wings in her dreams so many times over the last few years, felt the heat of those falling feathers as they dissipated in her hands. If celestial beings really did exist, surely their wings could not shine brighter.

"C'mon," said Rinoa, a little unsteadily, "let's hug it out, yeah?"

She didn't actually give Quistis any time to answer that, leaning forward to throw her arms around Quistis' shoulders without preamble. When Quistis didn't immediately respond in kind, she gave a gentle squeeze and leaned in harder, rather than drawing back. 

It was the right call, this time. Quistis had just needed a moment for her mind to catch up to her senses. Carefully, deliberately, she put her arms around Rinoa and hugged her back. 

Clearly delighted, Rinoa snuggled her face into Quistis' shoulder, tightening her grip a little. "Thanks," she mumbled. "Are we friends now?"

Quistis chuckled, startling herself. It had been a while since she'd last laughed. It was nice. Felt good for her. "Yes, Rinoa," she said. "Fairly sure we're friends now." 

"Oh good," said Rinoa, pulling back to wipe fresh tears and a little snot off her face, beaming. 

"I don't really know how to be friends with someone who isn't... like me, though," Quistis thought to warn her, awkward all over again. "I know how to fake it to get intel out of someone, but it's not really the same at all."

Rinoa snorted. "Yeah, no. It's fine, though! All you have to do is tell me what's going on with you, like you did here, and I'll do the same. And then we just work it out from there, you know?" 

Not so very different from her friendship with Xu, then. Perhaps she could manage this after all. Perhaps she wasn't as far removed from the civilian world and its norms as she'd so often felt. 

"I'll do my best," Quistis promised. She meant it. 

"Come hang out with me and the others more often, okay? And I'll come visit you, and invite you out and stuff. Don't say no every time," Rinoa warned. "I'll kick your butt. If I can handle Squall, I can handle you."

Quistis couldn't even argue that. Rinoa  _ had _ gotten through to someone everyone had thought was unreachable. Quistis might practically be a walk in the park for her. The thought was oddly comforting, though it made her feel a little inferior again.

"I'd like that," she agreed softly. "Thank you."

Silence fell again, quite naturally, but it was gentler this time. Rinoa turned around again to sit parallel to Quistis, but close enough for their shoulders to rub companionably. Watts and Zone would be there soon to brief Rinoa on the goings-on of Timber, so that she could fulfill her self-imposed role as third-party watchdog and keep it free of Galbadian influence. Despite being Galbadian herself, technically, no one seemed to find that objectionable, because it was Rinoa. Sorceress, savior of the world, all-round good egg.

Quistis wondered how things would change for her going forward. What impact would Rinoa have on her life, now that she'd opened the gates and let her in? 

She couldn't imagine any change that wouldn't be for the better. She smiled and leaned into Rinoa's warm shoulder a little. Wasn't it nice that she could do that now? 

The setting sun set the forest ablaze, but this time nothing burned. 

**X**


End file.
